Love Bugs on a Private Beach

Today was highlighted by a hand collecting excursion at Kouchibouguac River Trail, interrupting a day that had been dedicated to visiting our regular sites. We swept the low lying vegetation, peered under the bark of decaying logs and sieved the leaf litter for insects. Pseudoscorpions were unusually common as we collected through this particular trail. We captured more than had been found at any other site so far. They are comical invertebrates, with large pincer like forelegs extending in front of them, towering over their tiny bodies in comparison.

Three black bodied, red legged march flies, also known as “love bugs” on a rock in Fundy National Park.

The most common insect that is regularly encountered throughout our collecting efforts, and was present at this particular location, is a relatively large, black bodied, red legged fly. It has no apparent fear of us as insect collectors; they fly in large masses into Malaise traps, crawl into and succumb to pan traps, and willingly fly into sweep nets. We first found this particular fly in the first week of our trip; they were caught in traps, airborne and congregating in masses on rocks adjacent to water bodies. Eventually, we keyed out the fly to identify it. We found that it was a member of the fly family Bibionidae, commonly known as march flies (dubbed “Fundy Flies” as mentioned previously in Graham’s latest post). They have also obtained a cutesy nickname descriptive of their mating habits: “love bugs”. Male march flies regularly attach themselves to their female counterparts in mating, accompanying her in flight for excessive periods of time, and leaving an impression that these two insects are soul mates in love. In reality, the male “love bug” is simply protecting his paternity, ensuring no others can mate with the female. These lethargic, slow moving insects commonly latch on to our clothing, are unmoving when we approach them, are unafraid of capture, and are extremely abundant on the East coast.

Katelyn Lutes, Graham Ansell, and Martin Zlatkin looking over the water at a private, secluded beach off of Kouchibouguac River Trail in Kouchibouguac National Park.

Kouchibouguac River Trail surprised us as we wrapped up our collecting. We stumbled upon a beautiful secluded beach open to a broad section of the tributary and surrounded by tall evergreens. As we slowly travelled down the trail, we winded toward the coast and could glimpse sparkling water through the trees. We approached a designated lookout and decided to take advantage of it, suddenly finding ourselves on our own private beach. It was a peaceful ending to another day of collecting, until a porcupine surprised us by jumping up and waddling away in a frightened fury just a few meters in front of our path.

Lighting Up the Night Sky

Lighting Up the Night Sky

On the evening of June 3rd the BIObus team scheduled to do a night sheet along nearby Kouchibouguac River. A night sheet is a white linen sheet we hang and light up with an ultra violet light. The UV light is used to mimic UV rays given off by the sun and moon. The light draws in insects that are positively phototaxic towards moonlight. Unfortunately, insects like fireflies that stay away from light sources can’t be collected with a night sheet. We set up our night sheet at Tweedie Trail, which runs parallel to the river. Kouchibouguac National Park turned out to be a perfect place for a night sheet because of the absence of light pollution. This National Park is a designated Dark Sky Preserve, which means the night sky is exceptionally clear and we saw the stars shining with all their majesty. A Dark Sky Preserve is an area where no artificial light is visible at night, as guided by the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. Because of the Dark Sky Preserve status of Kouchibouguac, the night sheet was very successful.

Katelyn Lutes, Graham Ansell, and Martin Zlatkin sampling at a night sheet off of Tweedie Trail, Kouchibouguac National Park.

We caught a lot of different insects last night, such as crane flies, mosquitos and moths. We spent four hours checking on the night sheet. When sampling from a night sheet it is advised to check and collect from the sheet every hour or so, this way you can catch the emergence of different insects as the night progresses. I’ve seen June Beetles before but I’ve never seen as many June Beetles as I had seen last night – we collected upwards of 30 June Beetles. After collecting about five for DNA barcoding purposes we stopped collecting them for sampling, but that didn’t stop Graham, Katelyn, and I from collecting more in a large jar just to see how many we could get. Once we were finished collecting our samples for the night, which was at about 1:00 am, we released the mass of beetles from the jar. We left Tweedie and headed back to our camp to end yet another productive day on the BIObus.